January 8, 2013

IT'S A GOOD START:

The December jobs figures out today indicate that there were 725,000 more jobs in the private sector than at the end of 2008 -- and 697,000 fewer government jobs. That works into a private-sector gain of 0.6 percent, and a government sector decline of 3.1 percent. [...]

It is by far the largest four-year decline in government employment since the 1944-48 term. That decline was caused by the end of World War II; this one was caused largely by budget limitations. The only other post-1948 four-year drop was during Ronald Reagan's first term, when government employment fell 0.6 percent.